Sexuality In Moral Life

Jean-Marie Guyau, A Sketch of Morality Independent of Obligation or Sanction, tr. Gertrude Kapteyn (London, 1898), 1st bk., ch. II., The Highest Intensity of Life, pp. 82-3:

Sexuality is of capital importance in moral life. If against all possibility a non-sexual generation had been prevalent among the animal species, and finally among human beings, society would hardly exist. It was noticed long since that spinsters, bachelors, and eunuchs fall into the habit of being more selfish. Their centre has always remained in the depths of themselves without ever fluctuating. Children also are selfish; they do not yet possess a surplus of life to pour forth from themselves; it is about the period of puberty that their characters transform themselves. The young man is full of enthusiasm; he is ready for every sacrifice because, in point of fact, it is necessary that he should sacrifice something of himself—that he should diminish himself to a certain extent; he is too full of life to live only for himself. The period of generation is also that of generosity. The old man, on the contrary, is often inclined to become selfish again. People who are ill have the same tendency. Each time that the fount of life is diminished a need is felt in the whole of one's being to save—to spare one's self. One hesitates to allow one drop of internal sap to filter through.